


but seas between us broad have roared

by lovebeyondmeasure



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Minor Original Character(s), New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Post-Career of Evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-26 00:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13224393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebeyondmeasure/pseuds/lovebeyondmeasure
Summary: In the midst of everything else, Robin and Cormoran ring in the new year.--------------------Unrelated to any of my other R/C works. Happy 2018, friends!





	but seas between us broad have roared

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reindeerjumper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reindeerjumper/gifts).



> Coming in just under the wire for New Year's, in my time zone! I hope everyone has a bright and victorious 2018.
> 
> Prompted by reindeerjumper- here's to you, Carly!
> 
> Title from Auld Lang Syne.

Cormoran arrived at Nick and Ilsa’s house at 9:18 pm on New Year’s Eve, carrying a six-pack of Doom Bar and wearing a slight grimace.

It had been made rather clear that his invitation to this gathering was not optional; they were going to “cut loose,” as Ilsa’s sister had said cheerfully over dinner.

Ilsa had not been… entirely subtle about throwing the two of them at each other, but as nice as Annika was, they had very little in common at all. At least she’d been good company as they rolled their eyes at Ilsa’s matchmaking together.

In any case, he had turned up, and that was all anyone had asked of him. Nick took his coat, ushering him inside cheerfully as Ilsa came to take the drinks.

“There’s food in the kitchen, I’ll just put these in the fridge,” she said, kissing him on both cheeks. “Annika’s in the living room, I think there’s some sort of game happening, but somehow the crowd got young and I can’t quite follow it all.”

Cormoran laughed, patting her on the arm. “I think we might have got old,” he said confidingly. She barked a laugh and swatted him.

“Off you go, then, go say hello before you settle into the den and stop moving,” she reproved playfully.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving her off. He pulled on a sociable face and went to greet the rest of Nick and Ilsa’s friends, an odd cross-section of London society; Nick’s childhood friends were a good lot, some of his colleagues genial if crusty. Most of the younger crew tended to be his employees, nurses and receptionists and the like from his practice, a loud, perpetually changing group of mostly women. Ilsa drew in the young blowhards, chewed them up and spit them out respectable practitioners of law, and a few of them tended to turn up as well. 

Cormoran made the rounds, shaking the hands of those he’d met before, dredging their names from his prodigious memory. One or two of the nurses/receptionists/etc fluttered at him a bit, angling for a kiss at midnight perhaps, but he didn’t reciprocate in any way; no reason to, not the way his thoughts tended, these days.

Once he’d done things to Ilsa’s satisfaction, he went to get himself one of his brews and to find the group of blokes who would be sitting around talking footy. He might not know them well, but they were reliable for no personal talk and plenty of chat.

As he was rummaging through the bags of crisps on the counter, looking for the bottle opener, he heard a familiar voice at the door.

 _No, it can’t be,_ he thought, shaking his head. But then footsteps came into the kitchen, and it was. It was.

Robin stood there, kitted out in a sparkly black shirt and dark-washed jeans, carrying a bottle of champagne.

“Oh, see, Robin?” Ilsa said from behind his partner. “I told you he was here somewhere.

“Hullo,” he said, unable to manage anything else. She smiled at him, and it looked a bit forced around the edges.

“Hi, Corm, Ilsa said you might be here.”

“Yeah,” he said, still standing still. “Ah, I hadn’t known she’d invited you.”

“Oh, well,” Robin said. Ilsa seemed to have slipped away; curse that meddling woman. “She rang round the office the other day, dropped off that nice selection of teas as a thank you for all the business we’ve sent her the past few months. So.”

“So,” he repeated. Another one of the guests- one of Ilsa’s lawboys, as Nick called them- came in, glanced from Cormoran to Robin, and simply grabbed an entire bag of crisps before ducking back out.

Cormoran managed to get his bottle open and took a long pull. “I thought you were going to be ringing in the year with whats-his-name, the _artist_.” 

“I never called him an artist, Cormoran, he designs greeting cards, for godsake,” she bit out. Robin looked suddenly sad, or perhaps just tired, beneath her glittery makeup. “But no,” she said, running her fingers over the foil-wrapped bottleneck in her hands. “I’m not.”

This shifted the past few days into a new focus for Cormoran; her inattention at the office, constantly checking her phone, cutting off calls short when he came in. He’d thought she was angry with him, that he had done something. He saw now that he’d been so focused on himself he’d missed obvious clues.

 _You’re a fucking idiot, Strike,_ he thought to himself, taking another pull of his drink for something to do. _You’re a moron._

“Are you… alright?” he asked awkwardly. She shook her head minutely before plastering on a smile. 

“I’m fine, we’re just slowing things down,” she said, and if he hadn’t known her better he might have been fooled. “Anyway, we’ve got that new case, so I didn’t want to be out of town for that long.”

She set the bottle of champagne on the counter and grabbed an empty wine glass. “I’ll just pour a glass and see what all’s going on, then,” she said, and she was gone, as good as her word. Cormoran stood silently in front of the fridge, and didn’t realize time was passing until the bottle he held was empty.

“Oh, fuck,” he swore quietly to himself. He cracked a new bottle and went to find a conversation that’s wasn’t fraught with emotion and tension to be a part of.

Nearly two hours later, Cormoran realized that the house was full of a humming sort of energy, and went with the rest of the men he’d been talking to out to greet the fast-approaching new year. In the sitting area he found Robin had joined the young and rowdy crew, who had clearly been playing drinking games. 

She was nestled between Annika and one of the lawboys, and Cormoran felt a rush of- something- when he saw the way the younger man’s arm was resting along behind Robin, the sly glances she was blushing at. And Robin did blush so prettily…

He stumped into the kitchen, away from that sight, those thoughts. He grabbed the last of the Doom Bar regretfully, but ah well; once midnight was come and gone, he could go back to his tiny apartment and sleep it off in his too-small bed, and not have to deal with any of this.

“There you are, Strike!” Ilsa said cheerfully, her eyes wine-bright. “I was thinking that you might like to find Annika once we start the countdown, but I was afraid you’d slipped out.”

“No,” he said, then added, “I haven’t slipped out.” After a pause, he said, “You’ve got rather a lot of those young sharks this year, haven’t you?”

Ilsa smiled at this clear fishing for information. “There’s a good crop this year, yeah,” she said, leaning on the door. “Good looking lads, too. I heard one of Nick’s girls telling the new receptionist that she always gets a nice new year’s out of this party.”

Cormoran’s face darkened; Ilsa, on the other hand, seemed perhaps more cheerful, seeing her remark hit home. 

“It’s almost like a service we do,” she sighed, as she left the kitchen, her glass refilled. 

It was bare minutes to midnight now, and people we beginning to stand, to rustle around, to align themselves offhandedly next to someone they wouldn’t mind kissing. Cormoran knew his place was with the other single men who weren’t doing anything, to shake hands and wish well and start up the Auld Lang Syne. 

But some perverse impulse sent him to meander with casual purpose towards where he could see Robin standing, and he felt a vicious little burst of smugness at the fact that the lawboy who’d been feeling her up was at least three centimeter shorter than her, in her heels. 

She was laughing, but tugging slightly away from him, and Cormoran came to lean against the wall a bit behind her.

Around them, the countdown started, people holding up drinks, readying crackers, smiling and giddy. Robin tugged away from the lawboy, turning slightly, and Cormoran caught her eye.

“THREE!”

She looked at him with eyes wide. He opened one arm, the slightest of gestures, as if to invite her closer.

“TWO!”

Her eyes dropped to his lips for the briefest of moments, then came back up; Cormoran allowed his eyes to fall to hers.

“ONE!”

She took a step away from the lawboy, who was pulling her in, ready to kiss her, seal the deal, bring her home.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

She pulled fully from his grip, nearly falling into Cormoran’s arms; the angle placed their faces nearly level.

Around them, cheers and confetti rained. Cormoran could not look away from his partner’s face, her blown eyes and soft lips, all the things he’d been so careful not to think coming rushing to the fore.

Behind them, he could hear someone clear their throat; Cormoran could not have cared in that moment if someone had paid him to do so.

“Happy new year, Cormoran,” Robin said softly. Her eyes, once more, dropped to his lips.

“Happy new year, Robin,” Cormoran said, still holding her, still caught. 

He threw caution into the goddamn wind and kissed her, slanting his mouth over hers not in a friendly peck but in the way he’d been thinking of for... months, now, honestly.

And holy-jesus-lord-in-heaven she was kissing him back, was reaching up to grab his lapel, pull him tighter, and he was- was-

Cormoran allowed himself to sink into this moment, which was clearly a fever dream of some sort, kissing Robin as if there would be no tomorrow. She sighed beneath him, pressing closer, and when she slid her tongue against his lips, licking his scar, licking into his mouth, Cormoran groaned, reaching to slide his hand into her glorious loose fall of hair-

On the outside of this perfect moment, Cormoran became aware that someone was cheering. But not like they had been before…

Robin pulled away from him, blinking up at him as though in a daze, as Cormoran realized Ilsa and a few of the girls were clapping for them, for their kiss.

One girl wolf-whistled, and Cormoran thought she might have been one who’d made eyes at him earlier. Ilsa looked absolutely _smug._

“Finally!” she exclaimed, and a few people laughed, and the room began to move on, the focus shifting away from him and Robin, tucked against the wall.

Robin had leaned forward, blushing hotly, to press her head into his shoulder.

“Can we pretend that never happened?” she said in a small voice. Cormoran felt his heart freeze in his chest.

“Do you… would you like to pretend it never happened?” he asked lowly, his voice rough not only from beer but desire, though he’d deny it.

“Yes?” she said. Then, “...no?”

“Robin, don’t…” he sighed, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. “Please, don’t. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it, I swear. If you want this to not have happened, say so, and I’ll never say a word. If you’re going to go back to your greeting-card writer, fine. But don’t-” he couldn’t finish. 

“Please, Robin,” he said once more. She remained there, in his arms, her face against his shirt, and he thought in some other part of his brain that she would almost certainly be leaving makeup on him, but he didn’t have time to care about that.

“You’ll do anything I want?” she asked, still in that tiny voice, the voice he hated because she sounded so unsure of herself, so far from the Robin he knew she was.

“Anything, honestly, just don’t leave me wondering. I can’t… do that.”

She pulled away from him, looking down at their feet, and Cormoran was braced for the inevitable, but instead she took his hand in hers, still looking down, leading them through the kitchen into the back hall.

Standing there, in the dim lighting, finally she looked him in the face once more, and still her eyes were wide, so blue, and her lips were soft, and he wanted-

“You’ll do anything?” she asked, and now she sounded more like his Robin, and he had time to let hope send out the tiniest of shoots, to nod.

Her chin came up. “Will you kiss me again?”

With a groan he reached for her, and she fell back into him, and it was exactly as before, only more so; like a blazing, like a rushing, like an ocean he was happy to drown in. Her lips parted easily beneath his, and she tugged at his collar, and he let his hand slide into her hair to cup the sweet curve of her head, the silky fall of hair between his fingers.

He kissed her until he had to stop to breathe, then kissed her some more, and the noise she made beneath him made him reach for her, pull her closer, crush her against him.

He had no sense of time, there in that back hall, as they kissed and kissed and kissed; finally, he pulled away, flush and burning. He let his fingers run over the red marks on her cheeks form his beard. She turned, kissed his fingers.

“Robin,” he whispered, “darling, please.”

She looked at him again, and hope was a tree taking root in his chest, unfurling its branches, tall as the sky. “Take me home, Cormoran,” she said. “With you.”

He couldn’t stop the smile. “Yeah?” 

She made a small noise of confirmation, deep in her throat. 

“You’re sure?”

“Corm, are you trying to talk me out of it?” she asked. “Take me home. Please.”

He couldn’t help it; he reached forward, pulling her close to kiss her once more. He could feel her sigh against his mouth.

“All you had to do was ask, love,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers.

“Happy new year, Cormoran Strike,” she replied.


End file.
